Twitter As Your Worldwide Radio Broadcast

Many are still not convinced Twitter is the right avenue for their business or personal needs. Thinking of Twitter as your worldwide radio broadcast is a great way to address both your business and personal needs. All you need to do is decide whether you want to be the listener, the broadcaster, or a combination of the two!

Listener

For those not interested in using Twitter as a broadcasting tool, using the site is still beneficial. Think of it in the same manner you choose radio stations to listen to. They offer you something that is enjoyable or interesting for you to hear. Big brands, bloggers, celebrities, and experts are using Twitter to get out their own messages. Become a listener and find the ‘channels’ that will provide you with the information you want.

Interested in coupons and sweepstakes? Find users that provide that information to you. Shop at Kohls, or have a Verizon cell phone? Follow their tweets and learn about specials, discounts, and information about the brands that are applicable to your needs. Also advisable: follow the big personalities in your industry using Twitter directory sites, and get information that can be used for expanding your knowledge in a given field. The possibilities are endless!

Broadcaster

Radio broadcasts are often just a one way communication tool to send out your ‘voice’ to your listening audience. While some interaction is utilized occasionally, many radio programs are a way to communicate an overall message to listeners in a one way manner. There are radio programs that are informative, comical, controversial, and entertaining. Each program has its own format, its own audience, and its own method of communicating with its listeners. The key components to the overall business model for radio are voices, listeners, and communication between the two: whether one way or through two way conversations.

Twitter gives users a way to broadcast their voice and messages to those that are willing to listen. The problem facing many and similar to those faced by new radio stations, is sending out the right targeted message and finding someone who will actually listen. The standard traditional marketing methods are a great way to start.

Market Research

Market research is key to any successful marketing campaign. Finding your key demographic, figuring out what they are interested in, and conforming your message to fit within those parameters. Radio demographic research is hard to do, and often includes control groups, polling, and many other tasks that often require a lot of money. With Twitter this task is extremely easy given the tools available. Performing your own form of market research on Twitter should involve the following, which are all free and easy to use.

Search.Twitter.com: Simply by sifting through and analyzing keywords within the Twitter messages of current Twitter users you’re able to ‘spy’ on your demographic and learn how to form your message to appeal to them.

TweepSearch.com: This site allows you to find like minded users on Twitter simply by searching for keywords that may be contained within their bio or username.

Twibes.com, Tweetworks.com, etc…: Looking at user groups within sites that allow Twitter groups will show you the users you should take notice of, and see how interactive they are in your given niche.

Learn from the Competition: Check out your competition and see how they are sending out their message, and what you can learn from their successes and mistakes.

Optimize Your Message: Learn which time of day most of your audience will be online, learn about what they re-tweet, and how often they click through links. Using URL shorteners like bit.ly allow you to analyze your tweets and discover how often your message is clicked through.

Advertising

Print advertising and distribution is a very basic way of completing this task. Radio stations will often employ this tactic, but find early on this form of advertising is fairly archaic. New methods of advertising, such as website promotion, blogging, and creating a buzz through giveaways and other promotions are great ways to build listeners. The same tactics can be employed on Twitter to gain followers.

Radio stations will give away t-shirts, concert tickets, gift cards, trips, etc. This method has been proven successful in their industry, and is growing popular within Twitter as well if utilized properly. Using the radio station model one must think creatively when coming up with promotions and giveaways, making them interactive and requiring continued attention to your message. Having giveaways that require a follow is important, as well as tactics to have ‘listeners’ keep coming back for more. "Don’t forget, all this week we’ll be giving you chances to win, so stay tuned" sort of slogans are good ways to accomplish this goal.

With all the similarities between radio and Twitter one can definitely see the benefits, it’s just figuring out which side of the conversation you want to be on. Which side of the conversation do you prefer to be on?

3 Comments

CecilySep 26, 2009

I have tried Twitter a couple of times but haven’t found it useful neither for me nor for my business. Now, after reading this post, you’ve made quite change my mind. It may be useful for me. I’ll give it another try. Thanks!

Glad to hear you’ll give it another try. I know sometimes it can be overwhelming upon first look, but thinking about it as a radio broadcast might let you see some of the advantages. Also, if you know the right tools you’ll be a lot better off. Try Googling best Twitter tools, and you should find a plethora of them!